Remember the original Xbox controller? Of course not, nobody remembers a thing about the first Xbox!

History lesson! The Xbox controller sucked. The Type S came out, it still had the same wonky button layout, but at least it was more ergonomically designed. Unfortunately Microsoft insisted on that giant meaningless X in the center (which still couldn’t burn the memory of the system in anyone’s mind).

Once the 360 came out, Microsoft *GASP* looked at the miscues of their hideous controllers, then redesigned it into the most form fitting standard controller of this console generation.

Now take Sony. They took the basic SNES design and added more buttons, as was the style at the time. Eventually they added the dual analogs back in 1997. Since then the controller has almost never changed! Fifteen years and three consoles with the same controller!

Worst of all, the tiny changes they did add only made the controller worse than the fifteen year old original!

Take the “triggers” for example. They are going the wrong way! Did Sony’s R&D not know what a trigger looks like?! The trigger is not curved out, its not even curved flat. The trigger curves in. They had to go out of their way to make the triggers less intuitive and more difficult to hold down.

Don’t even get me started about how the shape makes the DS3 perfectly built for one thing. That thing is constantly falling off of all the places I place it on. Slides off my desk, slides off the arm of my sofa. Man, and don’t even attept to place it on top of the PS3. This Dual Shock 3 just can’t stay still. Who’s controlling who?

Then there is the weight of this controller. Where is it? The controller is as delicate as they come. You could kill a person with the heft of a Nintendo or XBox controller, and return to your game with the controller still performing up to code.

I have had two DS3’s die on me in the three years I have had my PS3. I didn’t exactly treat them tenderly, but my other controllers survive heartily under my care. Hell, my PS1 Dual Shock still works. The second DS3 stopped working, because if you grip the right side too tight, the A button triggers.

I went so insane trying to figure that problem out that it could be its own lengthy article.

This is all just my opinion, and I obviously own a PS3, I’m not hating. Nintendo got the message with their Wii U Pro Controller. I just want an Xbox 360 controller on every system I play.

Don’t let all this make you think the Xbox 360 controller is so perfect though…